Hawk! Who Goes There?

I was alerted to its presence by a scree’ing mockingbird in the vicinity, but it wasn’t until I looked into the boughs of the camphor laurel across the street that I spotted the predator — a juvenile Cooper’s hawk — clutching in its talons what remained of an unfortunate pigeon:

coopers

The heavily photoshopped image gets much bigger with a click, but not any better dangit. The light was low and diffused and behind the bird, and I was about 40 yards away handholding my SLR with its ungainly 70-300 lens. This was pretty much the best of the bunch I snapped until the hawk had enough of my intrusions flew northeasterly away.

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Will

Will Campbell arrived in town via the maternity ward at Good Sam Hospital way back in OneNineSixFour and has never stopped calling Los Angeles home. Presently he lives in Silver Lake with his wife Susan, their cat Rocky, dogs Terra and Hazel, and a red-eared slider turtle named Mater. Blogging since 2001, Will's web endeavors extend back to 1995 with laonstage.com, a comprehensive theater site that was well received but ever-short on capital (or a business model). The pinnacle of his online success (which speaks volumes) arrived in 1997, when much to his surprise, a hobby site he'd built called VisuaL.A. was named "best website" in Los Angeles magazine's annual "Best of L.A." issue. He enjoys experiencing (and writing about) pretty much anything creative, explorational and/or adventurous, loves his ebike, is a better tennis player than he is horr golfer, and a lover of all creatures great and small -- emphasis on "all."